2008: The summer of our discontent

Friday

May 30, 2008 at 2:00 AM

The digital number at the far right of the gas pump whirls by like a constant "8" as we fill our cars these days at $3.83 a gallon, and rising. Forty, 50, 60, 70 dollars. That's up by about a third from a year ago and we weren't happy with the prices of the summer of 2007.

The digital number at the far right of the gas pump whirls by like a constant "8" as we fill our cars these days at $3.83 a gallon, and rising. Forty, 50, 60, 70 dollars. That's up by about a third from a year ago and we weren't happy with the prices of the summer of 2007.

Diesel, which fuels much of America's interstate commerce transportation, is quickly nearing $5 a gallon.

Few of us have a third more disposable income to cover the increased fuel costs and still pump money into the local summer economy. There are various media reports of people torching their SUVs because they can no longer afford to fill them and they can't afford to trade them in either.

It looks as if this might be our summer of discontent.

Memorial Day was the unofficial kickoff of summer and New Hampshire is about as tuned in to the simmering tourism season as anywhere in the nation. Tourism in New Hampshire generates $1.4 billion in income annually to stand as the state's second largest industry.

While the state doesn't have a sales tax, don't be fooled into thinking our state's tax revenue isn't joined at the hip to the success of tourism here. There is the rooms and meals tax, sin taxes, gas tax, highway tolls, fees charged at the state's parks and so on. Think about all the hotel rooms booked by tourists; think about all the meals they eat. Bad summer tourism will have serious ramifications down the road.

If you're anticipating a paragraph with the tint of rose-colored glasses, you'll be disappointed. There's no easy fix here. Maybe people will credit-card finance their vacations and summer plans and life will seem relatively normal. But, the bill for overreliance on foreign oil, and upon oil itself, coupled with a self-strangling national energy policy, is coming whether it hits today, tomorrow, next month or next year.

Sure, we could ride bikes more often and have more neighborhood barbecues instead of driving to the Jersey shore or Downeast Maine. But food costs, particularly meat and wheat products, are sky high. A barbecue package of ground meat can set you back more than $10, and putting on a spread for a dozen or so family members and friends will make a fairly severe dent in your monthly budget.

The stories of people taking action with "Victory Gardens" to cut down the expense of grocery store food by toiling fallow back yards are heartening, but sporadic. Unfortunately, America has become a caricature of what it once was; a notion perhaps best seen in the commercialization of such a solemn observance as Memorial Day.

There isn't a rose-colored paragraph here because there isn't an easy solution to massive problems we unfurled upon ourselves through myopic self-centeredness and neglect of American principles.

The truth is Memorial Day has nothing to do with tourism or summer, which doesn't seasonally begin until June 21. Memorial Day, like most national holidays, was co-opted as a cheap marketing gimmick. It was traditionally observed today, May 30, not the "last Monday" of May, designed for a three-day weekend with the ancillary benefit of jump-starting summer tourism.

Memorial Day, of course, is about honoring men and women killed in defense of the ideals of freedom.

In this summer of discontent, maybe it's time to think about how tourism is an industry in the United States bigger than manufacturing, labor or others that produce durable goods. Travel and tourism ranks as the first, second or third largest industry in 29 states and the District of Columbia. Maybe our top industries should be rooted in labor and sustainable productivity and our rewards achieved by a summer day at the beach?

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